Snakes In The Well

7.6.08
Of Gophers, Ticks, and Snakes in the Well

I shot another pocket gopher today. It was digging up the yard over by the barn, so I snuck up there with the 22mag and pulled the trigger before all of the swallows went crazy with their squawking. The bullet went through his back and splayed him open in the very way that you imagine it will when you hold your breath to take the shot. I used my last round for that gopher. I’d been saving it for a few weeks now, for a day such as this.

Most guys trap pocket gophers when they encroach into their yard. Not me. If I am going to kill something, I owe it to them to be present. Gophers will dig in the evenings at about 7 o’clock at my place and whenever I pass through the kitchen I find myself peering out the windows looking for evidence of them. If I see a new dark mound of dirt I’ll give it my full attention and stare at it looking for activity, gun at the ready.

I’m not much for killing animals. I’ve never been deer hunting and don’t much care to. Though there is something satisfying in killing an animal that is bothering you. Eliminated, with no remorse. When we were young, my sister would get after me for squishing lady bugs because they were pretty. And when it rains heavy, my oldest sister swerves all over the road to avoid the frogs and their families.

I don’t plan on buying anymore bullets for my gun. There is no sport in shooting pocket gophers anymore, only maintenance.

Have you ever been around someone when they find a tick on themselves and their reaction is an over-the-top discourse on how terrible it is? Are you one of these people? I recently realized that this drives me mad.

“Just calm down,” I say “nothing’s going to happen to you. It‘s only a tick”

Ticks abound here. Killing ticks for sport is nonsense. When you feel one crawling on your skin you’d just as soon drive your car off the road in order to get a hold of it and kill the little bastard. Killing ticks is mere maintenance. No one feels remorse for ending the life of a parasite.

I have an open pit well, which means it’s big enough and wide enough to fall into. At about 12 feet deep it’s not the best quality of water, but it’s water and it’s the only well I have. It’s been in use here for 100 years or more and always has water flowing through it like a river. However, I have a problem with snakes, snakes that get into my well. It’s usually the worst in the spring. The water will begin to smell squalid, that’s when I know the snakes are in the well. Then, I march outside, throw the lid off of the well and see their foul, thin bodies floating in the water. I’ve honed my snake wrangling skills with a garden rake to competition standards because of this. Whenever I find the snakes in there I put half a gallon of bleach in the well to clean it up and start over. When the bleach wears off however, the snakes are back in full force swimming around like idiots.

Sometimes, when the snakes are still alive after I pull them out of the water I’ll take great pleasure in bludgeoning them with the garden rake. It’s the consequence of having to bathe in their stinky water.

If someone shot me in the back, ending my life instantly, leaving my splayed body for the birds, I don’t think I’d be upset. I wouldn’t be upset because I’d assume the killer that killed me was too much like myself. Not blood thirsty, not killing for the sake of killing. Merely out eliminating something they saw as a problem. I’ve tried burning ants with a magnifying glass when they‘re busy building their tiny ant towns, minding their own ant business. It’s tedious and it makes your vision all blotchy afterwards.